Obama – budget represents change in national direction

In his press conference last night, the President explained why he
is committed to the change in course on the nation’s
priorities that his budget represents. In response to a question
about the deficit, he expounded on the reasons for addressing so
many decades-old problems head-on:

OBAMA: Of course I do, Ed, which is why
we’re doing everything we can to reduce that deficit. Look, if
this were easy, then, you know, we would have already had it done,
and the budget would have been voted on, and everybody could go
home. This is hard.

And the reason it’s hard is because
we’ve accumulated a structural deficit that’s going to take a
long time, and we’re not going to be able to do it next year or
the year after or three years from now. What we have to do is bend
the curve on these deficit projections. And the best way for us to
do that is to reduce health care costs. That’s not just my
opinion. That’s the opinion of almost every single person who has
looked at our long-term fiscal situation.

Now, how do we — how are we going to
reduce health care costs? Because the problem is not just in
government-run programs. The problem is in the private sector, as
well. It’s experienced by families. It’s experienced by
businesses.

And so what we’ve said is, look, let’s
invest in health information technologies. Let’s invest in
preventive care. Let’s invest in mechanisms that look at who’s
doing a better job controlling costs while producing good quality
outcomes in various states and let’s reimburse on the basis of
improved quality, as opposed to simply how many procedures you’re
doing. Let’s do a whole host of things, some of which cost money
on the front end, but offer the prospect of reducing costs on the
back end.

Now, the alternative is to stand pat and
to simply say, “We are just going to not invest in health care.
We’re not going to take on energy. We’ll wait until the next time
that gas gets to $4 a gallon. We will not improve our schools. And
we’ll allow China or India or other countries to lap our young
people in terms of their performance. We will settle on lower
growth rates, and we will continue to contract, both as an economy
and our ability to — to provide a better life for our kids.”